It has come to light that members of the British Parliament on both sides of the house have been guilty of padding their expense accounts, and claiming reimbursements for all sorts of items, including swimming-pool repairs, moat cleaning, duck ponds, lawnmower repairs, dog food, cookies, cushions, horse manure and pornographic movies. Two cabinet ministers and two junior ministers have quit Gordon Brown's government in two days, and 15 parliamentarians from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have said they won't stand in the next general election. Some speculate that the so-called 'Expenses scandal' could even lead to the fall of Brown's labour government.

Who can forget our own 'Furniture scandal' of a few years ago when it was revealed that several government ministers had lavishly refurbished their homes and offices at public expense, wasting taxpayers' money. Of course, nobody resigned, nobody offered to stand down at the next election, and the Government did not fall. There is a big difference between the two parliaments.

What lessons might we in Jamaica learn from these scandals?

One defence offered by some of the British MPs is that their claims - outrageous as they might be - did not breach the rules of Parliament, and therefore, they are not guilty of any wrongdoing; of course, they made the rules to govern their own expense claims, and they define what 'wrongdoing' is. The first lesson we can learn is that we cannot trust MPs to make rules for themselves.

These claims for reimbursement were approved by civil servants, and the cheques issued and signed. These payments would have passed through several hands. The second lesson we can learn is that we cannot trust civil servants to police the MPs. There will always be public servants who betray the public trust and allow politicians to get away with corruption.

Cloaked in secrecy

One of the rules these British MPs made for themselves is that their claims for reimbursement should be confidential. No one was supposed to ever find out what they had claimed for, because the documents were to be cloaked in secrecy under their equivalent of the Official Secrets Act. The reason the British public came to know about it was because some public-spirited public servant leaked the documents to a British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, which has been slowly revealing all to the public. I don't think anyone believes it would have been better for the public if the information had remained secret; secrecy in these matters usually covers up corruption. The third lesson we can learn from this scandal is that transparency is the best safeguard against corruption, and that these sorts of declarations must be made public.

Jamaica has so-called 'Integrity Legislation' where MPs and other categories of public official make declarations of their assets. The idea is that if their assets are seen to increase dramatically, and cannot be accounted for relative to their earnings, then income from corrupt means is to be suspected and investigated. The trouble is that it was the MPs themselves who made this Integrity Legislation, and they have made sure that their declarations are to be kept secret under the Official Secrets Act.

Now, who is it that is examining these declarations of assets to see if there is any hint of corruption? Probably someone assigned to the job by the same MPs. In my view, these declarations should be made public, for that is the only way the integrity of our Parliament is to be policed. If a politician declares that he has two houses - one at X and one at Y - but he actually has a third one at Z, how is his false declaration to be exposed? If the declaration is public, then someone may see it who knows of the third house and will expose the corruption.

Promotes corruption

The present secrecy of the declarations - as written into the law by the MPs themselves - promotes corruption by MPs.

The British scandal leads me to ask a question: Are Jamaican MPs reimbursed for the same sort of expenses as British MPs? If so, is the nature of these expenses confidential? Do we have any public-spirited public official who is patriotic enough to leak the information to the press and blow the whistle on our own 'Expenses scandal'? I wonder!

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon.